Nom Nom. On Saturday night we had lobster at the house. While this one waited to be put into the pot we sketched it. I felt a bit bad, but he was pretty delicious.

This guy was kind enough to let me sketch him and he even sat down so I could paint this. Although he wasn’t with out a few jabs to my ability. I shrugged them off and was just happy to have something I really enjoyed in my larger sketchbook.

Some more sketches of the pottery guy. He made Raku style pottery and sold them in Wiscasset, directly across the tracks from Sarah’s Cafe.

I plan on doing a portrait of him with some of the photos I took.

Bob called this the Barfing Bovine. It was a cream pitcher. I enjoyed it.

Sketches From Maine Part 3

Sketches From Maine Part 2

Sketches From Maine Part 1

Sons of Turner

The morning of the show my Grandma and I sat in her living room painting our nails together.  We hadn’t done that since I was tiny.

Next up was the pizza party my Uncle put together for me.  Delicious food and wonderful people gathered at my other Grandma’s to hang out before my show. My niece and I stood at the bathroom mirror doing our make-up together and laughing before getting in the car. We rocked out all the way to Flavors Cafe and Wine Bar, music blaring and back windows rolled down (had to be careful with the hair.)

The next day. Yep, that’ s me. Glad the arrow cleared things up.

People who I hadn’t seen in 12 years showed up.

I talked about my work, learned some new information and now I have my first solo show under my belt. Not to mention a few articles.

This is about a quarter of the space. (Psst, that’s Blaine’s pottery on the table. It’s amazing)

There’s not much else to say. It was a great time and I am sure I will be working with Lynn and Flavors again in the future.

The day after the show Joe and his mom came down to see how everything was set up (and take photos.) They brought down their friend Blaine so he could finally deliver some of his work to Lynn. I have quite a few pieces from him and I love them all.

So…Yay for me!

I just put up a  few more items on my Cafe Press store. I included several items with my logo, but also mugs with my Thank You and Back of a Taxi paintings.

I am working on adding even more options as well as a calendar for next year.

When a person creates something, by law, it is automatically protected under the copyright law. While it is always better to copyright images, even if an artist does not the work is still protected. The artist can then sue the “borrower” for any profit made on the image.

Artists work very hard on their work. We have spent considerable time, resources, energy, and emotions in developing our style and “language.” It is ours and it is personal.

In order to be up to date we need to be online. We have to market ourselves and have a web page. If we want to reach out and expand our community we need blogs and Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages and more.  It’s bad enough when sites like Facebook claim the rights to our images if we post them, but at least we have a choice there.

Many artists do not like to watermark their work because it obscures the image and makes selling online difficult. Watermarks can also look unprofessional.

If you find that you took someone’s work and they contact you, usually removal of said work and a sincere apology is enough.  If the artist took the time to contact you before going to their lawyer then you should be very happy as well as humbled.  Do not behave like this guy http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/rethinking-healthcare/big-mother-gets-her-shot-at-cutting-health-costs/1023/#comments and respond with arrogance and condescension, trying to rewrite the law. Also don’t then write an eye roll worthy article acting as though the guy you stole from is an out of touch jerk like this…http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/how-to-protect-your-copyrighted-images-on-the-web/3684/.

I don’t know how to get it through to this guy that an illustrator makes money by creating illustrations for articles just like his and ethical professionals pay for those illustrations. As others in those comments said, it devalues the artist’s work because the clients that paid for the work then wonder why they bothered.

Just because something is easy to do does not mean it’s okay. Although now it is very easy to just click and grab a piece of artwork does not mean that artists should not get paid for someone to use it. It means that artists need to be even more vigilant. It means that it is even more important to get permission before using the work of someone else.

If you would like to see more about this particular situation you can find the artist’s reply here…http://drawger.com/buzelli/?section=articles&article_id=10164

Please don’t steal from people and for artists, copyright your work. Better safe than sorry.

P.S By law all my images are copyright. If you want to use my work, ask me.  I’m nice…unless you steal from me. Then I’m mean, very very mean. And while I may be poor (and would love the opportunity to take your money) I do have a lawyer in the family who would love to help me take your money.  Have a nice day.

These are the very first sketches for a children’s book I am working on. More details to come, I just wanted to show what I have been up to besides working at a bookstore and getting ready to move.

I am not the best sketcher, but I think by the time the book is finished I will be much improved. I am also not an illustrator, luckily the author wants what I do instead of illustrations.

Sorry for the very poor photo quality. I am having an issue with my computer. I have to open everything up as an administrator and I can not open up my scanner that way. I had to take the photos with my cell phone. One day soon I will figure out what the problem is and have it fixed.